100 hr Professional Development Programme

Keep learning. Keep becoming.

Freedom’s 100-Hour Professional Development Programme is a year-long mentorship for qualified yoga teachers who want to deepen their knowledge, strengthen their confidence and continue evolving long after their initial teacher training.

Across twelve specialist Freedom Masterclasses (one day a month), you’ll learn from an experienced faculty spanning therapeutic yoga, functional anatomy, philosophy, meditation, Ayurveda, inclusive teaching, energy practices and professional development.

Alongside the Masterclasses, you’ll receive private monthly mentoring with Programme Director Jax Heffer-Cooke. This is where the programme becomes personal: a space to develop not only your classes, but your wider life and identity as a yoga teacher. Together, you might explore ethical teaching, working with yogic texts, communication, confidence, branding, business ideas, community-building, social media and how to share your work in a way that feels clear, authentic and sustainable.

The Masterclasses give you new knowledge and inspiration. The mentoring helps you apply it, communicate it and build something meaningful from it.

This is more than a collection of CPD days. It is a year of investing in the teacher you are becoming

Freedom Yoga & Retreats Director Jax Heffer-Cooke

What People Are Saying

Why this 100hr programme

The best teachers never stop being students.

Finishing your first teacher training gives you the foundations to teach. It doesn’t answer every question that emerges once you begin standing at the front of a room.

How do you develop your own teaching voice? How do you work sensitively with different bodies and nervous systems? How do you create classes that feel memorable? How do you keep growing without piecing together disconnected workshops?

The Freedom 100-Hour Professional Development Programme gives you somewhere to explore those questions.

Because being a yoga teacher involves far more than planning classes. It means communicating what you believe in, building trust, nurturing a community and making thoughtful decisions about how you teach and how you share your work. The monthly mentoring gives you ongoing guidance through all of this, helping you bring together your teaching, values, voice and professional direction.

Across one supported year, you’ll learn from specialists, reflect on your own teaching and receive personal guidance as your confidence and identity continue to develop.

At Freedom, we believe that the best teachers are shaped by many voices. No single tutor can be an expert in every aspect of yoga, which is why the programme brings together an experienced faculty, united by one shared educational philosophy:

Compassionate. Evidence-informed. Philosophically grounded. Deeply human.

This isn’t simply about collecting another certificate.

It is about becoming a more knowledgeable teacher, a more thoughtful practitioner and a more confident version of yourself.

Course Content

The programme is structured around twelve 1-day specialist Freedom Masterclasses, each led by a tutor with depth and experience in their field.

Every Masterclass is a complete professional development day in its own right. Together, they create a wider journey through the physical, philosophical, therapeutic, energetic and professional dimensions of teaching yoga.

Open each section to explore what you’ll study.

The monthly mentoring is where everything you learn begins to take shape around you, your values and the work you want to create.

These sessions are much more than conversations about class plans. They offer private, personalised support as you develop your teaching voice, build your confidence and consider the bigger picture of your work as a yoga teacher.

You might explore how to teach ethically and bring yogic philosophy and traditional texts into modern classes with integrity. You might work on the language you use, the way you communicate your ideas or how to create experiences that feel clear, inclusive and genuinely connected.

The mentoring can also support the practical side of building a sustainable teaching life—from shaping your brand and offers to identifying your communication pillars, creating meaningful social media content and growing a community around your work.

There is no fixed formula. Each session responds to where you are, what you are navigating and what you want to develop next.

Knowledge gives you more to work with. Mentoring helps you make it your own.

You will be mentored on:

  • Your teaching voice, language and communication

  • Ethical teaching and working with yogic texts

  • Class ideas, sequencing and student experiences

  • Confidence, boundaries and professional decision-making

  • Branding and developing a clear identity

  • Building and nurturing your community

  • Creating workshops, courses or retreats

  • Social media and communication pillars

  • Marketing your work without losing its integrity

  • Business ideas, offers and sustainable growth

Dates

The programme runs across twelve in-person Masterclasses from September 2026 to September 2027.

Each month offers a new area of learning, followed by time to reflect, practise and apply what you have explored within your own teaching.

Between the in-person days, you’ll continue receiving private mentoring and remain connected to the programme.

The order of the individual Masterclasses will be confirmed once the complete faculty timetable has been finalised.

Your Training, Your Support

Eligibility, assessment, and what’s included

Applicants to the full Professional Development Programme must have completed a recognised 200-hour yoga teacher training.

You can join whether you trained with Freedom or another established training provider.

To receive the Freedom Professional Development Diploma, participants will need to:

  • Attend all twelve Freedom Masterclasses

  • Complete the required independent learning

  • Submit a reflective professional development portfolio

  • Meet any additional completion criteria confirmed before enrolment

The programme fee includes:

  • Twelve in-person Freedom Masterclasses

  • Twelve private monthly mentoring sessions

  • Programme learning resources

  • Guidance for the independent learning portfolio

  • Connection with the Freedom teaching community

  • The Freedom Professional Development Diploma upon successful completion

Required books, travel, accommodation and any optional additional events are not included.

Meet your Programme Director: Jackie Heffer-Cooke

Jax brings a grounded and thoughtful approach to yoga shaped by years of personal practice, professional teaching and experience leading classes, retreats and teacher-training programmes.

Her work honours yoga’s traditions while considering the realities of teaching in the modern world with honesty, curiosity and care.

Before working in wellbeing, Jax spent more than a decade as an executive television producer, leading teams and creating content within demanding professional environments. She has since applied those skills to developing several yoga and wellbeing organisations, including Freedom Yoga & Retreats, SunFyr Barns and Freedom Wellbeing Projects.

Jax remains Programme Director throughout the year. She oversees the curriculum, works closely with the specialist faculty and ensures that each Masterclass contributes to one coherent educational journey.

Most importantly, she provides monthly private mentoring to every full-programme member.

These sessions offer space to discuss the reality of teaching: confidence, students, sequencing, difficult classes, professional decisions, retreat ideas, marketing, business development or simply how your identity as a teacher is changing.

Jax also holds an MA in Global Social Development from the University of East Anglia. Questions of ethics, cultural integrity and social responsibility continue to underpin her approach to yoga education

Other teacher trainings (& specialist pathways)

If you’d like to specialise alongside the diploma, or add new pathways after you qualify, these shorter trainings offer clear, professional routes into teaching specific groups. Each is designed with safety, inclusivity and real-world delivery in mind- with options to train in person or live online, depending on the course.

FAQs